Fresh Lemons + Sugar + Water= Resfreshing...

Today was a hot day here in Ecuador. For those who are facebooks friends, I posted some pictures of our morning activity and by the time I got home I felt half baked. Not only are we on the equator but the altitude places us closer to the sun and today it felt that the sun had a desire to torch us.

Add that fact to a dozen lemons that wanted to go bad and you have a need for lemonade! Our lemons here are tiny and green. I have no idea why, but they are incredibly cheap and in constant supply.

While I boiled water on the stove I juiced my lemons. Then I added 2 cups of sugar in a glass measuring cup and added enough boiling water to equal 4 cups. Then I added my squeezed lemon juice. Because my only pitcher is holding the flowers of everlasting life (seriously- they are THREE weeks old), I decided to just make a concentrate that we can add to a glass of water whenever we want.

When I want some lemonade, I pour some lemon syrup in the bottom of the glass and add water. This also lets us vary the strength. I like my lemonade light and barely there. Dustan likes his strong, sweet, and tart. You can see he approves.

Some things to hope for

That she never becomes a fashion designer.



That she never changes.



That these precious moments never-ever end.

Yo cocino crepes (I cook crepes)

One of the things I love about living in Ecuador is the availability of gluten free flours. For Valentine's day I dreamed up a crepe breakfast. By dreamed up, I mean I actually dreamed it. In my dreams I was making crepes out of banana flour. When I woke up, I decided that I didn't have much to lose by trying out my dreamed up recipe.

I don't think anyone loses out on this, except maybe you folks that don't have access to banana flour. Sorry. I guess that would be most of you. But yay for us! We can have banana crepes anytime we want!

You can however make your own recipe of crepes and stuff them like we did. One crepe has peanut butter and chocolate inside, and the other has mora berry jam and is drizzled with chocolate. I served it with the icecream from the previous post. Everyone deserves ice cream for breakfast!

Banana Crepes:
1 cup banana flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 TBS sugar
1 cup of milk
2 eggs
1/8 tsp baking powder
2 TBS melted butter

Just mix and add about 1/4 a cup of batter to a hot, oiled skillet. Twirl the pan a bit so you get a nice thin surface. When the crepe is almost dry on top, flip and cook for another minute or so.

Ice Cream in Ecuador

My children have declared the following Ice-cream the "THE BEST IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD" Marcus wonders why anyone would ever eat any other kind of ice cream. I can't ever understand what Weston thinks because his mouth is so full of ice-cream that it drips out the corners of his mouth.

It is definitely not a typical ice-cream. It has a more subtle sweetness and a much more "in your face" creaminess. It is definitely worth making.

I flavored mine by adding Tang!
Tang? Yes, it still exists. Here in Ecuador it comes in several flavors including our family's new favorite fruit: Mora Berry.

You could add any kind of flavoring you wanted. Play around with it and make sure you tell me how it turns out.




Thank you to Lucinda, the Brazilian missionary here in Loja. We missionaries are a diverse sort of folk, which will provide me with many different foods to try. YES!


PS. You can see my new dryer outside the window. I give it five stars for energy efficiency but only three stars overall. Unfortunately its consistency in performance is about as consistent as the weather in Loja. Which is to say- not consistent at all.
(However, I must admit that I LOVE hanging my clothes and think that they look very pretty hanging out on the line.)

PS # 2- Yes, those are bars on my windows. I have found the Ecuadorian people to be a very honest lot. Whenever I try to over-pay for my goods (which is all the time, because I can't understand money in Spanish), they always laugh and work diligently to make me understand that they said .30 cents and not 3 dollars. However. They ALL want my icecream and I have to protect it somehow.